Iran is ready to provide military aid to the Iraqi army to help it in the fight against Al Qaeda affiliated groups if the Arab country asks for such a help from Tehran, a senior defense official has said. Tehran, however, will not conduct any joint operation with the US in the country. In a conversation with Iraqi National Security Adviser Faleh al-Fayyad over the phone, Anthony Blinken, a deputy American national security adviser to President Barack Obama, expressed US support for government operations in Anbar province to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), commonly known as Al Qaeda in Iraq.